Both Side of Child Labor

In David Montero’s (2006), “Nike’s dilemma: Is doing the right thing wrong?” he describes how child labor has problems on two sides. One is that labor violations such as the child labor have moral problems. He said, “According to UNICEF estimates, more than 3 million boys and girls below age 14 work in Pakistan.” (para. 13). So, many non-government associations try to solve these problems. The other is that stopping labor violations have bad effects on economic activity. In some places, children are responsible for maintaining their livelihood. For example, according to his writing, many workers in Sialkot worry that these changes will have a bad effect on their society.

I think that although the child labor may be important for children’s livelihood, it should be strictly prevented for their future life.

First, for solving this problem, all nations have to cooperate with each other. The labor violations, especially the child labor violations, are worldwide problems and global issues. Nowadays, many non-government organizations are trying to solve these problems. However, it is not enough. Most of these problems are happening in the international companies. So, countries have duties to do their work according to strict laws. If each country has different laws, we are not able to control companies.

Second, we must not concentrate on these problems for a short period. Although solving these problems may make third world people’s livelihoods are harder than now, after several years, it will be clear that their lives are more comfortable. For example, if their children study hard, they will get higher knowledge and technology. These changes give a chance for their living conditions to be more improved. In the long term, for their lives and their children’s lives, they do not have to steal their children’s future.

Finally, we have to make international guard systems. Mr. Dogar of IMAC said that we are not able to do “24-hour surveillance,” and cover “the whole area.” So, we make an international association with nations, companies and non-government organizations. For example, we make international laws. If some companies do not obey those, countries do not allow selling these companies’ products. If we can do that, we can make a trend of obeying these rules.

In the end, child labor is not only a problem of their lives, but also a problem of their countries and whole nations. So, we have to watch these problems as a long-term project. In order to do that, we should make a system that is able to do a 24-hour watch.

Montero, D. (2006, December 22) Nike’s dilemma: Is doing the right thing wrong? Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved March 31, 2008, from Lexis-Nexis